


Crush With (or Without) Eyeliner

by merriman



Category: Empire Records (1995)
Genre: Background Shenanigans, F/F, Reluctant Relationship Advice, Single POV, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28310196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/pseuds/merriman
Summary: How is it that Deb, of all the people at the Empire, is the one being looked-to for relationship advice? Or, why don't Corey and Gina just fucking kiss already good fucking god.
Relationships: Gina/Corey Mason
Comments: 14
Kudos: 28
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Crush With (or Without) Eyeliner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/gifts).



> This rather got away from me. It was meant to be a short last minute treat in one of my favorite fandoms and then it grew. 
> 
> For reference, I listened to a lot of Madder Rose and R.E.M. while writing this. Madder Rose is who Corey has put on in the store mid-story and R.E.M. is what inspired the title.
> 
> AU Note: In this story, AJ's crush on Corey has faded and he's got other stuff going on. Like my recipient, I never want to see AJ's heart broken, but I also wanted Corey to go in another direction.

Gina and Corey were flirting again. It was like fucking clockwork or something. They shared the morning shift on Thursdays and it was usually just them and maybe Eddie asleep in the vinyl section and when Deb walked in at noon there they'd be, flirting. 

"Do they even know they're doing it?" Deb asked AJ one afternoon while they were on break. AJ was at his art table and Deb was perched next to him while he painted something he wouldn't tell her about yet on the back of her shirt.

"Probably not," AJ said, not looking up from his painting. "Hold still."

"You'd better be done by the time my break is over. Fuck, I hope I don't lean on anything while it's wet," she muttered.

"If you have time to lean, you have time to clean," Lucas intoned from the countdown room where he was making copies. Deb flipped him the bird and AJ swore as she shifted and she felt the cool brush of paint on the small of her back.

"Hey!" she protested.

"Stop moving!" AJ insisted. 

So Deb stopped moving, but she didn't stop watching Gina and Corey. It was like a TV show, watching it through the windows in the break room doors. Out at the tills, Corey was ringing up a customer while Gina stood just a little behind Corey, trying to distract her by poking her side where her sweater rode up a little bit every time she reached with her right arm. Deb watched as Corey tried vaguely to slap Gina's hand away, grinning each time she failed. When the customer finally left, Corey rounded on Gina and tickled her, getting her right in the ribs where apparently Gina was most vulnerable.

"I'll have to remember that," Deb muttered. "If I ever need to incapacitate Gina. Go for the ribs."

"What?" AJ asked, finally looking up to peer over Deb's shoulder out the doors. "Oh, I mean, are you planning on flirting with Gina?"

"I wouldn't be tickling her," Deb said, though it wasn't with as much malice as she'd once have used. 

"You're done, by the way," AJ told her. "Should be dry in like, twenty minutes."

Deb hopped off the table and twisted around, trying to see what he'd painted.

"No peeking," AJ said, pointing a paintbrush at her before cleaning it. "So what are you going to do about those two?" he asked her, coming around the front of the table while he cleaned off the brush. 

"I dunno," Deb said, shrugging. "Not my job to play Cupid. I figure I'll just enjoy the show. I mean, what am I supposed to watch now they've canceled My So-Called Life?"

"A tragedy of the ages," Lucas commented as he walked past, pile of bright yellow copies in his arms. 

Deb considered, just for a moment, asking Lucas what the hell all the copies were. She'd done their weekly flyer and coupons on Saturday and there was still a pile of them by the registers. But sometimes it was better just not to know what Lucas was up to. No, make that always. It was always better not to know what Lucas was up to. Far more entertaining to find out when it blew up in his face.

"You know I had a crush on Corey for like, two years," AJ said, tossing the brush in one of the jars on the table.

Deb turned to stare at him, holding the look until he turned to look back at her. Then she held it a few beats longer.

"AJ," she said, patient as she could be, which was very patient indeed. Deb found she often had to be patient with her friends. They were sweet, but they were not bright sometimes. "Everyone knows you had a crush on Corey. Even Eddie knows, and he's usually high as a kite. What we don't know is why you don't anymore."

AJ grinned at Deb and slung an arm over her shoulders and Deb let him. After all, AJ was one of the few people who ever got to touch her at all. He had permission. 

"Some day, Deb, when you get to be my age…" He laughed as Deb shoved his arm off her shoulders and groaned. 

"You are two months older than me, smartass."

"And in a month and a half, you'll be old enough to understand that sometimes crushes just… don't last." AJ shrugged. "Come on, break's over. Let's go relieve the lovebirds, let them flirt back here instead."

* * *

Double shifts were kind of the worst, but Deb had volunteered because it meant overtime and a gal had to pay her tattoo artist with something other than IOUs. At least, one had to pay one's tattoo artist if one wanted to continue to not get something horrifically embarrassing inked on one's skin for all time. Deb had once met a guy who had the actual words "IOU 1 TA2" on his ass. As soon as she'd seen it she'd laughed so hard that they'd lost the mood entirely. Good thing, too. Turned out he didn't just owe his tattoo artist. He'd owed pretty much everyone in town, as well as a few exes from other towns. Scumbag.

Anyhow, overtime, double shift. And Deb had a bonus veto on the music, because that was just fair. If someone called out and someone else picked up their shift, they got that person's veto, even if they'd already had a veto that day. Deb had hoarded hers. She hadn't used it earlier in the day when Eddie had insisted on playing the entirety of Thick as a Brick twice while he read out bits from the album artwork. Okay, so it was cool that the vinyl album had a whole newspaper built in, but Deb wasn't much for concept albums from the 70s. But no, she hadn't used her veto, because she'd known she was working the night with Corey. And Corey had what Deb considered horrific taste in music sometimes. There'd been that one time when she'd been obsessed with Breakfast at Tiffany's and sometimes Deb still found herself singing that fucking song in her sleep. It wasn't all bad, but when it was bad, it was tragic. So Deb had braced herself going in.

But no. Everything Corey had put on had been decent at the very least. Deb kept waiting for something ear piercing to blast out of the store's speakers, but it never happened. The only thing that kept her from asking Corey about it was that she could tell Corey was just dying to tell her. She kept sneaking little looks at Deb through the shift whenever she put a new CD in and Deb just wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.

"Why is Lucas still here?" Deb asked Corey after Corey put on yet another really pretty good CD. "He's not working tonight."

Corey looked where Deb was looking, back into the break room where Lucas was rearranging furniture, shoving the couch back towards the wall.

"I have no idea," Corey admitted. "He's been… okay he's been Lucas, but more Lucas than normal, you know?"

Deb nodded. Yeah. She did know. Lucas, man. 

"So," Corey asked after twenty minutes of only the music playing and no conversation aside from the guy who asked to use the bathroom every night at 7:23 p.m. precisely, took precisely three minutes, and always thanked them politely so they let him do it even if he wasn't a paying customer. A few actual customers were browsing, heads moving along with the music. One girl had even danced her way down one aisle before she'd remembered she was in public.

"So?" Deb asked, picking up a bright yellow piece of paper that had been tucked under her register. On the back was a grainy photocopy of a picture of Joe playing the drums when he thought no one was looking.

"So," Corey repeated. "Do you think Gina would like this CD?"

"No, she'd hate it," Deb replied automatically as she turned the paper over. The only thing it had on the front was a date and a time. Three nights from now, after closing. "Huh."

"Really?" Corey asked, sounding so pitifully disappointed that Deb actually looked at her, tucking the yellow paper back under the register. 

Fuck. Corey was actually asking her for advice. Deb took a deep breath and let it out, then awkwardly patted Corey's shoulder once, twice, pause, third time. "She'd love it," Deb told her. "I mean, to be honest, I thought she was who you got it from. It's not your usual style. A little harder than usual, you know?"

"I like all sorts of things," Corey informed her archly and Deb rolled her eyes. "I do! You just think I only like pop, but I just like it when I'm working. It's not distracting."

"Well, if you're wondering if Gina would like this, she would," Deb assured her. "Why not just ask her?"

Corey looked like she might actually answer that, except that just then a crash came from the break room. Deb hopped over the counter down to the floor while Corey made sure the registers were locked and came around from behind them.

"I'm okay!" Lucas called from the break room when Deb and Corey opened the doors and stood there, staring. He had apparently tried to stack a bunch of chairs, none of which were the same shape or size.

"Lucas?" Deb said. "Go home."

Lucas was lying on the floor surrounded by chairs. He nodded. "Yeah. I should go home."

By the time they got the break room cleaned up and went back to the registers there were customers to help and the moment had been lost. When they locked up that night, Deb considered maybe asking Corey if she wanted to like, talk or some shit, but Corey just waved and smiled that infuriatingly brittle smile and told Deb to have a great night. So Deb just gave her a fake smile back and jammed her helmet on.

* * *

"Do you think it's like, selfish or something, to like boys and girls?" Gina asked three days later when she and Deb were working on an inventory of the classical section, one of the most avoided jobs in the store.

"Why would that be selfish?" Deb asked. "Do you want to collect them like Beanie Babies or something?"

Gina hesitated and Deb also paused as they both considered that concept.

"Nah, no collector's value," Gina concluded after a few moments. "But seriously, people say it is, but I dunno."

Fuck.

Deb gripped her pen between her teeth while she pulled a bunch of CDs out and put them back in order. Who the hell even came up here to mess these shelves up? She had a suspicion that Joe himself did it just to have an excuse to make them clean the balcony.

"Look," she said as she put the last one in place and took her pen out of her mouth to mark those CDs down on her inventory sheet. "If you're hot for a girl, just go for it. Life is short, Gina. I wouldn't think you'd need permission to jump someone's bones if you wanted to."

"That's different," Gina informed her. "That's just for fun."

Deb took the sigh she wanted to heave and tucked it away for later. "And whoever this girl is, it's for what, misery instead?"

"You're such a bitch," Gina said.

"Card carrying Heartless Bitch, yes," Deb agreed. "Gina, just say something to her, whoever it is." Corey, it's Corey, Deb thought to herself. It's Corey and you're doing that thing you do where you think you're not good enough for someone and the last time you did that you ended up dating that guy who took you on a date to a kegger and made you pay for your own beer then left you there so he could go get high with his buddies he didn't even introduce you to. "Stop underestimating yourself," she advised, suddenly serious while she kept her eyes on her clipboard. "You deserve someone who won't dick you around."

Gina didn't say anything and Deb knew she was being scrutinized. She kept her attention on her work and finished the shelf she was on, then checked her watch. "Closing time," she told Gina.

"Yeah," Gina agreed. "You know, you deserve that too. Berko's a dick. You're better off without him."

Deb shrugged, a little weirded out by Gina returning her sincerity.

"Come one, come all!" Lucas' voice sounded over the loudspeaker. "To the great Joe Appreciation Show!"

Lucas was supposed to be on the register, but when Gina and Deb looked over the balcony, the store was already closed and locked up, the registers shut down and drawers hopefully in the safe out back.

A bunch of the other Empire employees and a handful of regular customers and former employees had gathered in the break room. Lucas had managed to clear the room of furniture and set up several life-size standees of Joe. Joe himself was standing in his office doorway staring at what had become one of the stranger parties to grace the Empire.

The music playing was sort of familiar, but in a weird way, and Deb tried to figure out why, but the sound of people talking and asking Joe if it was his birthday or something (no, it wasn't) drowned it out too much for Deb to catch it. She grabbed herself a soda and went to find AJ, who was painting at his table, which had been shoved in the countdown room somehow. 

"Hey, thanks for that phoenix, by the way," Deb told him. "I figure I'll frame it instead of wearing it."

"Do what you want," AJ told her. "Wearing it is part of the art. Doesn't mean much if it's not on you."

Deb pulled up a stool next to him and sat down, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Sure," she agreed. "I'll wear it 'til the paint all flakes off then."

"Perfect," AJ told her. "Oh hey, check it out." He pointed out the doorway to the middle of the break room where Gina was talking to Corey and Corey was talking to Gina and they were both laughing and then Corey was doing that laugh/cry thing she did and then they were making out. No one around them seemed to even notice. Deb golf-clapped and AJ joined her. 

Lucas peered around the edge of the doorframe. "Better than television, right?" he asked them. "I figured a party might do it."

Deb and AJ stared at him. "So it's not for Joe?"

"Oh no," Lucas assured them. "It's for Joe. I just thought Corey and Gina needed a push too. Why not?"

Deb and AJ golf-clapped for him and Lucas bowed. "Thank you, thank you. Can I come sit with the cool kids?"

Deb shrugged as she hooked another stool out from under the table. "I dunno, where are they sitting?" she asked. "We're just losers back here."

But she didn't really believe that. After all, she had a front row seat to the best show in town and she had two of her best friends there with her to watch.


End file.
